Ratings: ‘The Neighbors’ season 2 flops, hurts ‘Shark Tank’ season 5 premiere

In theory, we really liked the idea of “The Neighbors” moving to Friday nights after “Last Man Standing.” The two shows could have had a heavy family audience, with them both being about parents and their colorful crew that are their children. Unfortunately, what we saw here was more evidence that comedies airing on Friday nights really don’t mix, and airing these shows prior to most of the rest of the fall season, without that much promotion, was probably a mistake.

While “Last Man Standing” was hardly a warrior with a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic, “The Neighbors” completely tanked out with a 1.2. If the show fared this poorly for its premiere episode, and that was with hardly no competition, imagine how it will do when there are actually some other things on TV to watch.

Meanwhile, we also blame the performance of “The Neighbors” on “Shark Tank” stumbling out of the gate with a 1.7 rating, down slightly from its viewing figure at this point last year. Clearly, it was not the best night for any of the shows, and there may be one simple reason why: Timing. Starting off any Friday show in September is tough, especially before the actual first real day of fall TV. People are still off enjoying the last days of warm weather, and watching TV really comes in second place. While shows (at least on network TV) traditionally drop from year to year, it’s never by such a large margin that you raise an eyebrow over it. We assume now that “The Neighbors” will be canceled soon enough, and ABC will need to find another new way to support their hit corporation competition-of-sorts.

Click here if you want to read our full review of the “Shark Tank” premiere, and stay tuned: We will have much more scoop related to it soon enough.

Photo: ABC